The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-11-01
FARMS AND FARMERS
Short Talks With the Men Who
Guide the Flow.
QUESTIONS 0NFARMT0PICSANSWERED
The Manure Pile.

On we'll regulated farm, the manure heap
should be looked after every week in the year.
Not day passes. but something might be
added to it. For some time, we have been
having all the refuse and waste matter from
the home of small family deposit-
go on one of these piles, and have been struck
with the rapidity of its increase. Ashes, SCOT
from the stove pipes, trimmings, hulls, etc, of
vegetables, chicken feathers, bones, slops of all
kinds, indiscriminately thrown upon it, are
rapidly building up quite q mass of rich
material. One who has never done it, would
De surprised at the rapid accumulation. And
IL Will be pretty concentrated and very
complete kind of manure. Not an ingredient
needed by plants will be wanting The urine,
feathers, scraps generally, and SCOT,
will supply goodly quantity of
nitrogen The bones will supply phos-
phates the ashes will furnish potash, and the
vegetable refuse will supply a goodly quantity
OF humus to dilute and make available these
varied kinds of plant food. This, supplement-
ed with the proceeds of a dry earth closet,
which every family should have, will manure
highly family garden. Now, the above illus
trates how much, on this line, can be done on
farm The resources of the latter are very
great, compared with that of family yard and
garden. 1t has woods, fence or hedge rows,
ditch banks, muck beds, straw piles, barnyards,
stalls, pig styes, cotton seed, all of these to
draw on. If a farmer will make a regular
business of accommodating manure, not regard
1t as secondary otf-thing, to be looked after
In wet times when nothing else can be done,
he will be astonished at the quantity he can
gather up in year. Manure making
ought to take precedence of every
thing else on a farm. The object of
farming is to make goods crops.
Nothing will contribute more to this end than
an abundance of good manure. Everybody
knows this, and yet the majority of farmers
practically act as if they did not believe it.
They let manurial matters about them waste,
are slothful about collecting it, give few
rainy days, perhaps, to the work, and trust for
results to good seasons, good luck, or some
thing else equally vague and uncertain-and
to commercial fertilizers. Now, if there is
any one thing which the experience of the
last twenty years has clearly demonstrated, it
is that commercial fertilizers are unreliable on
poor land destitute of humus, and nine-tenths
of the land in the older cottrn states is exactly
of that character. Commercial fertilizers to
give good sesults must be associated with hui
mus. If the latter is not present in the soil,
Unjust be furnished through the compost heap;
and furnished literally The two can
not be successfully divorced from each
other More. Big compost heaps will reduce
the quantity of commercial fertilizers needed
on farm. A little of the latter will go long
way, when mixed with plenty of farm manure.
In short, the farmers fertilizer bill will be
greatly reduced.
1t is urged, therefore, upon every farmer,
who has not already done so to begin at once in
earnest to build up tremendous manure pile.
Make that the leading business from now until
spring. What is the best plan of procedure?
First, shall it be under shelter or not? Where
the materials have to be gathered up slowly
and the pile built up gradually it is better'to
have it under shelter; because heavy rains
will leach through pile only foot or SO high.
If materials are SO abundant that a pile
put in pen can be made at once three or four
feet high, there is no need for shelter. Raiu
will not leach through such a mass,
but will help rather, by keeping
up a desirable degree of moisture
in it. For a manure heap made of crude, I'M
deeomposed, unfermented material, should
always be moist to allow chemical changes to
develop in it. This moisture, whether sup
piled by rain or poured on by hand, naturally
gravitates downward, taking with it more or
less of the soluble materials in the upper lay
ers The lower parts should therefore be
largely absorbent material. Dry muck, or
rich earth, half rotted leaves or straw, woods
mold or something similar, should be put at
the bottom Of the pen, and six or eight inches
thick Then the poor and comparatively rich
material should follow in alternate layers, re-
serving the richest of all for the upper layers
near the surface. The reason for alternating
thus is, that fermentation is contagious; rot
ten tooth makes its neighbor rot Rich ma
nure like cotton seed or stable manure when
it ferments, starts fermentation in leaves or
straw, etc, next to it, and thus the whole
mass is eventually leavened. Should ashes
or lime be put in heap of which
cotton seed and stable manure form q part?
Yes when much crude material like leaves or
straw are also present mingle them. thoroughly
with the leaves and straw, and put the mixture
in the lower part of the heap. Thus managed
there is no danger of their producing loss of
gases and they will themselves be valuable
contributions to the manure. Aside from the
teaching that takes place in open yard, the
waste of urine is the great manurial leakage
on most farms. The urine of animals contains
much the largest portion of nitrogen that is
thrown off from their bodies and most of this
valuable substance is loss because so MANY
animals are allowed to run I'M unsheltered lots
without absorbents, and even when they are
present, rains leach the urine out of them and
carry it off. By all means keep animals in
covered stalls, let them be cheap and rude if
If you please, but have them. Their cost will
be paid back many fold by increased health of
animals in winter. by saving of food and by
saving of manure. VII.
EDITORS CONSTITUTION: Seeing several queries con-
corning carp culture, give few points that have
learned from experience, and hope they may CON
vince some that this branch of industry is one of
the most important in which the southern farmer
can engage in.
Select place where hillside and surplus rain
water lie turned into large canal to pass around
the pond. Much depends also on the size of the
stream if too large, freshets viii break the dam; if
too small summer heat viii evaporate the water
and keep the pond low. The first work is to run
hillside bitches TO keep sand and muddy rain water
out; when this has been thoroughly completed cut
the canal 70 guard against freshets If the stream
Is large the canal cannot be too large.
Clear the plat of trees leaving those that are near
the pond for shade Leave a few brushes or cane in
some part Of the pond for the carp to lay on and to
protect the young
If crnwdsh infest tho soil, or II It be soft mud dig
o ditch two feet deep and about rs wide
lalong the line Of proposed dam. We
Supposedly Fill it with sand or